


March of the Arts 2019: For Mana

by ZZDigital



Category: BomBARDed (Podcast)
Genre: March of the arts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 19:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20345764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZZDigital/pseuds/ZZDigital
Summary: Happy March of the Arts! Some fun stuff is afoot at Strumlotts for our favorite band and favorite sweater bearer. Everyone finds themselves having a "souper" time!





	March of the Arts 2019: For Mana

"Now, open wide..."  
**"RUUUUHHH"**  
"And there. Ok, you can close again."  
Zil obediently closed his mouth, a small leaf was sticking out from between his dead, fishy lips.  
"Ok, let me just get that for you." Raz'ul gently plucked the leaf out, and set it in a bowl.  
"So you just fed him some hot potpourri"  
"Yeah, I figured this way we can eliminate some of the smell. I used a lemon citrus base, because I think that's probably what would go best to cover a dead fish stink."  
"You put it in his mouth though."  
"It's the easiest way for him to carry it. He doesn't need that mouth for much-"  
"You don't know that."  
"And besides: clean inside; clean outside"  
"So what you're saying is you eat your potpourri like a soup."  
"No! I don't- it's not a soup! But a lot of components are very good snacks, yes, ok!"  
"Souppourri."  
Yashee set down her magazine, Fun Activities for Kids: Spoon Edition, "Great, you guys are really making me want soup. Does anyone else want soup? I was thinking about running down to the cafeteria and getting some. What kind do you guys want?"  
"I have an order of hot gazpacho, it's very peculiar." Randy said, "I'll come down with you. I think our buddy here has all the soup he needs."  
"Fine! You two have fun. I'll stay up here and work on my homework anyways."  
"Are you sure?" Yashee pouted a little, "it'd be really really great to have you. We could be soup buddies and make a song, and swap soups, and tell stories."  
"I'm fine, I'll just… stay up here, I'm going to work on that time signature essay. Thanks."  
"That's not due for like 2 more days."  
"Yeah? And what are you doing for it, Randall? Interpretive dance?"  
"I'll think of something."  
“Ok, love you! Bye!” Yashee genty swept Randy out of the room and closed the door behind them. 

* * *

Raz’ul chewed gently on the stem of the rose-pen he had bought. The salesman said it was guaranteed to dispel drifting of the mind from tasks at hand. Raz’ul had found this to be quite true: every time his mind wandered he inevitably put the pen in his mouth and promptly poked himself on a thorn. He calmly cursed as a fresh drop of blood fell on the music sheet and reached over for the bottle of white out.  
There was a knock at the door. “Come-” He caught himself. Inviting people in without checking could lead to trouble. He did not want the dorm to be ransacked again and this time to be his fault. So he got off his beanbag and walked over to the door and looked through the peephole.  
Tabitha rapped on the door looking a little bit distressed. Raz’ul immediately swung the door open for her. “Hey! Tabitha! Tabs! Tabby, come on in!” He beckoned, “How have you been?”  
Tabitha shrugged, "I've been okay, Raz'ul, how are you? You doing well?"  
"About as well as could be expected. Anything I could get you?"  
"Um, actually," she tugged a sleeve on her sweater gently, "I ordered some things recently. There was a flower set, but it was for two people so I had half of it delivered up here. I was hoping Yashee would be around and we could get the delivery together when it arrives"  
"Oh, a flower set? Arriving today?"  
"Yeah, my order hasn't arrived yet, but I also had more things, so I figure, I figure it's probably later than this order. They'll drop off here and then magic mine up to my place."  
"Well, you're not wrong; you said yours hasn't arrived yet?"  
"That's right."  
“There _waaaas_ a delivery this morning. We didn’t really know why, but I’m kinda like, the flower guy around here. So I kind of ended up with it.”  
“Oh, great, where is it?”  
“Zil, open up.”  
**_“HRNGH”_** Bits of moist, chewed up flowers dribbled from Zils mouth onto the floor.  
“Oh. Goodness.”  
“Yeah, Now the seed packs are totally okay! I was going to plant those once I can find a good spot for them. But uh, the flowers themselves are kind of bust. Except they were the best breath mints a zombie fish thing could ask for.”  
“Well, I guess that’s at least putting them to use.”  
Raz’ul saw her retreat into her sweater and immediately grabbed her hand and patted her. “It’s okay. I’ll make this all better, like I said: I’m the plant guy! Also the guitarist guy, publicity man, animal wheel of fortune guy, and, once in a while, book thief bear.  
“I- those are some strange titles Raz’ul.”  
“Guitarist and publicity man are not. I’m in a band. You’re in a band too! What are you doing? Are you even out there? Next time I get a run of business card printed I’ll make a set for you guys.”  
“Well, Garreth actually printed out some business cards already and has been handing them out.”  
“That’s dire. Right, I’ll put in an emergency order and make you guys some good business cards immediately!”  
“I- Thank you Raz’ul.” She softly smiled. “So where is Yashee, anyways?”  
“Oh, she’s out getting souped on with Randy. Nothing too exciting, unless you really like gazpacho.”  
“I prefer french onion, myself.”  
“Hey, me too!” Raz’ul beamed. Tabitha squinted at him a little, ever since he had become a glamour bard he had a tendency to literally beam rainbow light and hurt peoples’ eyes if they stared too long.  
“Maybe we can meet them down there? How long do you think they’ll be?”  
“Well, they went a while ago. So probably not too long. You’ve seen the Yashee bowls though, right? Alto Brown has a special collection for people like her who just eat way too much, so it might take a little extra... ” Raz’ul started doing some addition and subtraction on his fingers Tabitha could only infer the meanings of from his mutterings.  
***  
_Meanwhile…_

“Second platoon! Advanced to their flanks! Trumpets! I need you running support for those woodwinds!”  
“General Yashee! A report!”  
“Go ahead, Major Randy.”  
“The advanced scouts were captured. Sandy is being held prisoner!”  
“Those monsters! Hold on, Sandy! I’mma coming!”

***

“That’s a really good way of putting it here.” Tabitha used red ink to check a section of Raz’ul’s essay. “But the flow of the paragraph is broken. Maybe if we can move this section over to the next one.”  
“Agh, that one was the worst! And now I’m going to have to redo it!”  
Tabitha patted him, “Hey now, second time is usually much easier. Sometimes. Usually it’s the third time at least.”  
“Do you guys write songs three times every time?”  
“Raz’’ul, we write songs five times at minimum if we want them to be good. What are you guys doing?”  
“Well, usually we bring out the instruments and start playing...and it just kind of happens, you know? You’ve been there.”  
“Yes, I have.” Tabitha flashed back to the few times with Chaos Sauce she had played in dangerous situations to produce incredible effects no teacher had mentioned before. She had tried to look into it after, but the faculty was pretty cagey with information. “And you guys just do that for everything?”  
“Well, not everything everything. Like I’ll still butter my own bread most of the time. But sometimes the mood just hits you and you’re like “woah, I can just play musical butter songs” and that butter really gets you because it permeates that entire croissant but you can’t eat that all the time you’ll get fat. Also, there’s like a 10 percent chance that butter will just, like, explode and go into everything.“  
“Really?” Tabitha flinched  
“Yeah, let me tell you: cleaning a magically butter infused guitar-axe is not fun.”  
“All this talk about butter is making me hungry. Do you want to go down to the cafeteria?”  
Raz’ul put down the essay and checked the wall clock. “Sure, they’re pretty late anyways. I promise I won’t use butter magic on anyone's food.”  
“Good.” Tabitha walked over to the door and held it open for him.

***

An hour later Raz’ul and Tabitha returned to the dorm room. Raz’ul had a takeaway bowl filled with their leftovers. “What is a french anyways?”  
“I don’t know, maybe some kind of culinary school. Anyways, this stuff will make some great fertilizer for the seeds.”  
“Are you sure? I always heard it was manure you wanted to use for plants.”  
“It can be anything” Raz’ul sloshed the bowl around. “As long as it’s organic and breaks down. Though We may want to water it down a bit for the salt content.”  
“Well, you’re the expert.”  
“I’m actually making this up as I go. But I have some good hunches and everyone loves french onion soup!”  
Tabitha set down the planter box she had grabbed from her room. The soft loam had settled during the trip and now she dug into it with her bare fingers. “Ok, I made some holes.”  
“Great!” Raz’ul opened the packets of seeds and carefully and deliberately placed each one. Then he gently covered them with dirt. And wildly dumped the soup on it.  
“Ok, next step: get some jars of water and water this down. And we can set up the cuttings.”  
“Cuttings? I thought you used all the grown plants earlier?”  
“No, you don’t use a whole plant for potpourri, well, you can, I just like to save some for exactly this reason!”

***

Yashee peered around the corner; she was alone. Randy had been driven off, the rest of her troop had scattered ages ago. Her heart beat fast as the rain flowed down her face. There were three up ahead, she could take three, if she was stealthy. She wished Randy was here, he could get in with no issues. Or even Raz’ul, his Pass without Trace spell had proven its worth time and time again.  
She breathed deeply, and gripped her hammers with white knuckles. A blade suddenly appeared in her vision. She found herself surrounded by 10 of them. There was no way she could fight off that many…  
“Any last words?” They asked her.  
“Cowabunga!” Came a thundering voice. Randy upon the back of a griffon swooped into their midst, breaking lines as they dived for safety. Yashee grabbed the front legs of the beast, the talons sank slightly into her wrists, but she didn’t care. She had escaped.  
“So long, suckers!” She called out to them.

***

Tabitha and Raz’ul sat with balls of yarn between them. Tabitha was holding Raz’ul’s hands and guiding them through the movements. Raz’ul was growing slightly flustered as his cozy refused to be consistent size.  
“Maybe I just need more hands.” Raz’ul set the needles down.  
“What? No, that’ll just be harder. You need practice!”  
“No, hold on. I’m going to be an octopus. Watch, it’ll be great.” Raz’ul immediately began to morph. His form shrank down and limbs split into two tentacles. He had become an octopus.  
**“Holy moley. And I’m actually an octopus now.”** he octo-slapped the chair in excitement, each limb sending out one color of the rainbow.  
“Turn back right now!” Tabitha hissed. “That’s not going to help.”  
**“No, you don’t understand. I never get it right. This is the first time. I think I could cry…. Nope, octopusses don’t have tear ducts. Hey, watch this!”** Raz’ul scooped up the yarn and needles in several limbs, raised them dramatically and… lowered them.  
**“Ok, so letting go is a little tricky with these. I meant to try and juggle, just give me a minute please.”** He worked the tentacles a little and set everything down. Then picked up two sets of needles and began trying to knit.  
Raz’ul’s octopus tea-cozies could be summarized as doilies that a rat had chewed through after sending them through the wash a few times. All stretched out with giant gaps, they were the worst tea cozies anyone had ever beheld.  
Raz’ul turned back into a dwarf and began crying.  
“Raz’ul, I’m sorry. It just takes time, you’ll get better, I swear! I didn’t start out good at knitting, well I did have a knack, but I had to learn so much still!”  
“No, it’s not that,” he sniffled, “I actually did it right. I’m going to treasure these forever now.”  
“Uh, okay.” Tabitha withdrew a little. “So, come by once in a while and I’ll keep giving you lessons, ok?”  
“Yeah, that sounds good.” Raz’ul held the cozies tightly to his chest.

***

Raz’ul sat alone in the dorm, he put down his latest essay draft as the door opened. Randy and Yashee walked in, covered in paint, feathers, water, and the faint smell of brimstone.  
“Hey, where have you guys been? I would’ve thought you’;d be home hours ago!”  
“Oh, you know, we ran into some distractions.” Yashee said plucking some feathers out of Randy’s hair.  
“Yeah, some distractions of _draconic_ proportions.” Randy chimed in. Yashee started laughing loudly.  
“How about you, buddy, what’s been going on? Finish that essay?”  
“Yeah, it’s about done.” Raz’ul rolled it up. “I just had a quiet day in working on stuff. Oh, hey check his out!” Raz’ul leaped into the center of the room.  
**“And I’m a- aw, I’m a giant snail now!”******  
“That's very cool.” Randy said. “Hey, can I get in your shell? There’s room in there, right?”  
**“No, I- Ah, never mind. Practice makes perfect eventually, right?"**  
“That’s right,” Yashee affirmed. “I’m sure you’ll get it someday, that isn’t March of the Toys.”  
“Exactly. Now about your shell…”

** **** **

***

A year later  
Raz’ul was set on a stool; his eight tentacle arms were set in rhythmic motion as they began to weave yarn together. Tabitha admired his multitasking ability, and she gently tied off a pair of vines.  
“It’s all finished!” she called out. There was a thud as Yashee hit the ground and came running in. Tabitha proudly held in front of her a sweater, grown from flowering vines guided as they grew. It was a collaborative effort she and Raz’ul had been working on for months, and it was finally fully grown.  
“”It’s sooo good!” Yashee admired it. The flower petals had formed star constellations against a deep green sky.  
“Try it on!” Tabitha urged her.  
“Ok!” Yashee throw it over her shoulders and started to squirm a little. “Oh, it’s itchy in all the wrong ways.”  
“Well, it is a first attempt, the next time will be better, I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> For Mana! I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
